Prince of Dragons

by Cathryn Cade

  “They’re back in the ventilation shafts,” Yvene told him. “Headed for the ballroom.”

  He was already in motion at a dead run. “Sirena!” he roared. “They’re coming your way. Get all the civilians out of there into containment.”

  As Slyde’s voice roared through their com-links, Sirena and Craig stared at each other across the holo-vid showing the ventilation shafts above the ballroom.

  “You were right about the ventilation system,” he said, already drawing his weapon as he whirled to look up at the nearest chandelier.

  “Now you tell me,” she shot back.

  She moved past him, looking up at the ceiling. Blowing out a sharp breath, she tilted her head back and sniffed. She quartered gracefully across the floor of the room, weapon at the ready, filling her nostrils with scent. There was human male, strong and spicy. The familiar scent of other Serpentians. The faint exotic scent of the prince and his men, watching closely with weapons drawn. And there—she grimaced. Above all the other scents, stronger as she turned back toward the rear passageway, coiled the miasma of serpent.

  “They’re up there,” she called. “Moving back this way.” Holding her laser before her, she dashed toward the passageway. She heard pounding footsteps as Layla and the others followed her.

  “How can they move so fast?” Craig demanded as they burst into the pet quarters.

  “I don’t know,” Sirena called back, already lifting her weapon to aim it at the ceiling as she moved sideways down the aisle between cages. “I’m beginning to wonder if they’ve been enhanced in some way.”

  “Well, they’re sure leading us on a wild asteroid chase.” He crossed the room to aim his weapon at another air duct.

  She scowled. “You’re right. This is not normal, even for serpents that have been cornered, like these.”

  She sniffed again, grimacing as she scented the snakes, and cast a swift glance at the hatch beside her. “Where does this lead?”

  “Into the Azurian quarters,” Layla called across the room.

  “I’m going in,” she said. “Guards, follow me. Tahh, you’ll come with me. Layla, Amar, go to the right. As the others arrive, they follow.”

  The hatch slid open, revealing a wide passageway with open doors. And as they moved farther into the area, Aquarians watched warily from luxurious rooms. The scent of the serpents faded the farther they got from the pet quarters.

  “They’re not here,” Tahh said. “Have they doubled back?”

  “I think they’re headed back to the area above the ballroom,” put in Layla.

  Sirena froze. “The prince!”

  Afterward, she did not even recall her dash to back to the ballroom, only that the hatchway, the cages and the passageway, with guards emerging from all directions, seemed to float by her. Faces turned her way, voices cried out, but she did not deviate, did not slow, even when she had to shove someone out of her way.

  The prince’s men were poised in a loose formation about him, a warlike tableau against the seraglio screens. Their faces turned toward her, weapons raised, but she spared them not a glance, her eyes fixed on the slender golden shapes pouring out of the vent over their heads.

  “Get away!” she screamed. “Get—him—away!”

  In slow motion, the prince’s men threw him sideways with them, one of them twisting far enough to gaze up in horror at death swaying above them. The prince, even as he fell, raised his laser weapon and fired upward, the burst of laser light flashing in tandem with Sirena’s as she fired on the run.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  To Craig and the others who could only watch, too far away to do anything, Sirena was like a yellow flame streaking across the ballroom, firing her weapon as she ran. Even as the snakes dropped from the vent, she threw herself between them and the Aquarians, a living barrier of flesh and laser flame.

  The snakes struck, bodies coiling and slashing out with red mouths wide. One checked in midair, hit by a slash of laser beam. The other struck Sirena full on, crystalline fangs sinking deep into her forearm. She fell to the floor, the snake writhing on her.

  Craig felt a roar of rage and anguish erupt from his own throat, heard it echo from a dozen others. The guards dashed forward. He followed, adrenaline surging through him as if he were in a wartime battle.

  One of the Aquarians fired again, missed.

  “No!” The prince knocked his arm up as the shot sliced dangerously close to Sirena, now struggling on the floor with the viper. The prince surged forward as she grasped the writhing body in her free hand, trying to yank it off of her. Two of the guards dashed between the Aquarians and their commander, daggers out.

  A deep bellow of rage shook the ballroom. Slyde Stone burst in at a dead run.

  “No!” he roared. “Sirena!”

  The Aquarians scrambled to their feet, bearing their prince away. The Serpentians skidded to a halt by Sirena, Izard slashing at the snake with his dagger. The laser-wounded snake dropped to the floor, slithering away beneath a divan, followed by laser blasts as two of the guards fired at it. The other, blood now streaming from a cut, released Sirena from its fangs. Twisting out of her failing grip, it followed its mate with lightning speed.

  “They’re getting away!”

  Craig and the guards started after them, but Navos grabbed his arm. “No, Captain—wait.”

  Craig followed his gaze, his mouth dropping open. Before their eyes, the huge Serpentian braced himself, legs wide. Then he flung back his head and let out another mighty roar, shaking the room. The air around him shimmered with a conflagration of heat and smoke.

  From it burst a golden creature who unfurled his short, powerful wings, turned his head toward them and roared again, this time a soft, guttural warning, full of sharp, gleaming teeth and a long, forked tongue.

  Stunned, everyone in the ballroom fell back, gaping at the golden-scaled apparition who stood over Sirena.

  The commander was a shape-shifter! As one, their mesmerized gazes swept from the flaring horns above his heavily boned skull, the wings unfurled on his shoulders, to the short curving claws on his huge hands and feet. His golden yellow uniform hung in tatters.

  “A dragon,” someone breathed. “He’s a Dragolin!”

  “Stay back,” the Dragolin demanded, his voice a deep husk of menace. Smoke drifted from his mouth as he spoke.

  Azuran, who had been the first to break the thrall and move, stopped short. Their eyes met and then he nodded abruptly, acceding.

  It was so quiet everyone could clearly hear as the woman on the floor at the dragon’s feet gave a great sobbing gasp for breath. Her body jerked.

  The Dragolin dropped to his mighty knees beside Sirena. Carefully he lifted her into his arms, his huge, clawed hands cradling her high against his chest.

  He looked into her eyes.

  “Trust me,” he growled.

  Her body was beginning to convulse, the poison working its deadly force, but she gazed up into his eyes.

  Bending his head, he opened his mouth. As the others watched in horror, he sank his teeth deep into her flesh.

  Sirena focused on the heat radiating from the mighty arms that held her. The icy pain wanted to devour her, to drag her down into its black jaws and freeze her. She had never experienced such shooting, slicing agony. Only his heat kept her from surrendering to it, letting it take her.

  Then he sank his teeth into her wounded arm and a new agony seared through the ice.

  Dimly she realized he was sucking on her wound. She fought for breath, fought to stay conscious. She would not give in—would not let it defeat her. The ice eased just enough to allow her to breathe.

  He lifted his head. Blood trickled down the golden scales across his flared jaw. Her blood.

  “I’m sorry, my siren,” he said in that deep, smoky voice. “This is going to hurt even more.”

  “Go…ahead,” she managed to mumble. “Hurt…you worse…”

  His golden eyes gazed deep into hers, their lambent
flames warming her deep inside, where the poison could not touch her.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “It will. A thousand times.”

  He bent his head to her again, drew a deep breath and breathed fire into the wound.

  She screamed, arching like a drawn bow in his grasp as this new, even greater agony scorched through her.

  “Come and take her,” he roared over her head. “Get her to Tentaclar.”

  Sirena sank back, her gaze blurring as she drew in one long, painful breath after another. Then she saw something that made her eyes fly open in horror.

  Behind him, two long, sinuous golden shapes danced forward, mouths wide, flat black eyes fixed on their new goal.

  “Slyde…” she gasped. “They’re…back.”

  The Dragolin thrust his woman into the arms of the first guard to reach them: Izard. The other male gathered her close and backed away, flanked by Yvene and Raile, their weapons aimed behind Slyde. He watched until she was safely out of range and then he turned on the enemy.

  With a mighty blow of his arms, he swept a set of the decorative screens crashing aside, then shoved a grouping of furniture after it, thumping and tumbling across the floor.

  With a soft growl of satisfaction, he stepped into the cleared area and watched the pair of wraiths advance. Heat filled him, the roaring heat of battle. He drew in their foul scent, welcomed it, stoked his rage with it. He would avenge his female with their destruction.

  “Yesss. Come to me,” he growled. “I am a worthy opponent.”

  Opening his mouth, he drew a deep breath and coughed out a gout of flame at them. It flashed through the air. The deadly serpents struck through the thick cloud of smoke, one after the other, the wounded one just a nanosecond behind its mate. Reaching out, he let them take him, one on the shoulder, one on his arm.

  With a roar of defiance against the pain of their fangs, he grasped the writhing body of the snake hanging on his left shoulder and ripped it away. He squeezed it in his mighty armored fist until it lashed wildly and fell hissing to the floor. He planted one foot solidly, stepping on the still-twisting body. It writhed and fought, mouth wide, then turned its head to attack his leg.

  He ignored it, grasping the other. Yanking it from his arm with a roar, he held it out before him and grasped the flailing body with both hands. With all his strength, he squeezed.

  The serpent fought wildly, mouth agape, hissing with fury. But slowly its struggles ceased, and the slender body fell limp.

  He cast it aside, then bent to grasp the other one. Holding it out before him, he roared again, coughing a gout of flame that enveloped the serpent’s head.

  Overhead, the Orion’s fire retardant system came on. Water shot down from myriad tiny nozzles, drenching the ballroom and all its occupants. The Dragolin scarcely noticed it.

  Dimly he heard a thin cry, a pettish wail of distress. Dropping the smoking body of the snake to the ground, he turned, peering through the mist at the small, slender green man who darted out of the jumble of furniture. Disheveled, squinting against the rain, he wore the livery of the prince of Aquarius. His green hair twisted wildly about his head. In his hand he held an electronic device.

  “No!” he cried again. “No, it can’t end like this! It was all planned—all of it. The serpents killed the boy, they killed the woman. It worked perfectly—and they will kill Azuran. They must!”

  He aimed the device at the ruined bodies of the serpents on the floor, one smoldering, one oozing blood.

  “Get up!” he shrieked. He pressed the device in shaking hands, and the snakes’ bodies twitched violently, splashing in the water pooling around them. “You must get up and finish it.”

  “You!” said the Dragolin. “You are responsible for this foul attack.”

  He prowled forward with a chilling growl, his teeth glistening, wings flaring, claws outstretched toward the little man who was still gibbering, trying to animate the serpents.

  Navos was the first to react.

  “Commander,” he called. “You must not kill him. We want him alive. Do you hear me?”

  The Dragolin checked and turned his head slowly toward Navos. He snarled his defiance. One of his mighty arms shot out, and he grasped the Pangaean around the neck, lifting him off of the floor.

  Craig strode across the floor toward them, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the water.

  “Commander,” he shouted. “As your captain, I am ordering you to stand down. Do you hear me? Stand down!”

  As the rest of them held their breath, the huge beast cast one last, longing look at the little man hanging in his grasp, thin face turning a dark, congested green. Then the Dragolin opened his grasp and let the Pangaean fall to the floor in a sodden heap, gagging and gasping for breath.

  “Let Commander Navos have him first,” the Dragolin said. “Then it will be my turn.”

  Yvene and Raile jerked the Pangaean off of the floor, fastening soft restraints on his arms and legs.

  “We’ll keep him for you, Commander,” Yvene promised the Dragolin.

  “You’ll take him to the infirmary isolation unit,” Craig snapped. “I want him checked over, and sedated if necessary, until we’re ready to question him. I want nothing to happen to this prisoner, are we clear on that? And will somebody get this quarking water turned off?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Serpentians chorused, although more than one cast longing looks at the captive.

  Craig watched them haul the Pangaean away, then turned back to face the Dragolin.

  He bowed, ignoring the water dripping off his face. “Commander, thank you. You have saved us all.”

  With a deep rumble of sound and drifting smoke, the Dragolin turned to the carnage on the floor. “Get some bio-toxin suits and get this cleaned up. All their secretions are deadly.”

  “We’re on it, Commander,” said Izard. He gestured to two of the guards.

  “We’ll want to autopsy these,” Craig said, moving to look down at the lifeless snakes. “They have some kind of implant, from the way he was using this controller.” He picked the device up, shook the water off and handed it to Arde. “Make sure Halix gets that.”

  “At once, sir.”

  The Dragolin let out a deep sigh. They all watched as he staggered slightly, and then turned away.

  “Commander?” Raile hurried forward, but the Dragolin motioned him away.

  “Leave me.” He stalked away behind a row of screens that were still standing. They heard him sink heavily to the floor.

  “He is about to shift back,” said Navos. “He is nearing the end of his strength.”

  Craig motioned Raile to follow the Dragolin. “Some of you get him to the infirmary. He took three strikes from those snakes.”

  “All right.” Craig looked around at the rest of the guard, drawing their attention back to him. “I want absolutely no other crew admitted besides guards, is that clear? None of this can go any further than this room.”

  The Serpentians all nodded resolutely. “You can rely on us, sir,” said Yvene. “For our ship and our commanders.”

  Craig nodded back. “I know I can,” he said with a tired smile. “I know I can.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  When the ballroom had been restored to its usual splendor, Izard and Yvene looked around one last time before they opened the doors to step out.

  There, they stopped short. A group of passengers had gathered in the lobby and were talking nervously among themselves. When they saw the two guards, they fell silent. Then a short, plump man stepped forward, possibly pushed by the woman at his side.

  “You there, guards,” he said. “What in the galaxy is going on in there? We’ve heard all kinds of loud noises—like a fight of some kind. And my wife distinctly smelled smoke. If there is trouble on this ship, I demand to know. Seems to me this cruise line would be watching its Ps & Qs after the excitement on the first two voyages.”

  Izard’s expressive brows shot up. He exchanged a look with Yvene, who wid
ened her eyes at him and shrugged unhelpfully. Izard bent closer to the tourist.

  “Well, sir. It’s that Aquarian prince. Another of his little…entertainments.”

  The tourist gasped and Izard nodded wisely. “A magician from Teradathia.”

  The tourists let out their breath on a collective sigh. Yvene bit her lip.

  “But what was he doing?” one dared to ask. “It—it sounded like a wild beast roaring. And—and the smoke?”

  “Well, I’m really not allowed to say, sir, but just between us, it involved a large smoke-wolf and several dancing girls.”

  “Oh, my stars,” breathed the man. “You don’t say.”

  “Disgusting,” said Yvene virtuously.

  “Oooh, yes,” agreed the tourist’s wife, who had sidled close enough to hear. She scurried away.

  “Don’t breathe a word about this, will you?” said Izard, looking concerned.

  “Oh, no, of course not,” said the man. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Er, the smoke-wolf isn’t on the loose, is it?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Back into its cage and probably on the magician’s shuttle by now. I believe he mentioned another engagement on Carillon this evening.”

  “Oh.” The tourist’s face fell.

  Izard and Yvene sauntered away.

  “A smoke-wolf?” she murmured. “That was a masterful touch, my love.”

  He allowed himself a small smile. “Yes. How long before the story is all over the ship, d’you think?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, an hour, give or take. It’s a big ship.”

  They reached his quarters, and he ushered her inside. They both sank onto the divan, breathing identical deep sighs of weariness.

  “Did you suspect?” she asked without opening her eyes, “that Commander Stone was Dragolin?”

  “No more than you did,” he said ruefully. “I merely wondered whether he and Sirena would cause the Orion to burst into flames with the force of their passion.”

  “Very poetic,” she approved, amusement clear in her voice. “When we’ve had a rest, perhaps we can cause a small conflagration ourselves.”